Mervyn Hoe: My Daily Happenings

Wow! The countdown is 40 days! It is really exciting! And there will be another 'Hoe' in the family. In fact, we are so looking forward to it. She will be wearing those newborn clothes that was worn by Kate previously. Blessed by Nature I didn't blog about this. However, this is true. At Tioman , while both Eve and I were snorkelling, we were about 70m away from the shore. And both of us felt something biting us. I looked at my legs, but there was nothing. Then Eve stopped. She felt something biting her legs too. We just couldn't find anything. We continued to snorkel and later I felt something biting me again. It's those small itchy bites. And later I looked at Eve's stomach area, and guess what? There was a small fish swimming at her belly! It's like those fishes that swims below the whale/stingray. And it's really very amazing as the fish just follows where her belly is moving to! It was so similar shape and colour as her bikini strap that...

I'm really honored to know that this movie is awarded at Cannes. My wife told me about it, and she asked me whether do I know the content of it. I said, "I have no idea about it." It's a story about a maid working for a typical Singaporean family with a child and two working parents. And somehow the relationship between the son and the maid became from bad to somewhat a mother-son relationship. And there are relationship strains in the family and so on. There was a scene whereby the mother told the maid that, "I am his Mother. Not you." "My Ilo Ilo" This scenario rings a bell to me as I was taken care by my maid from Primary One to Primary Four. And it was this time whereby I remembered that I grew close to my Sri Lankan maid. I loved her cooking and to tell you honestly, I was closer to her than to my parents then. It was okay to me, but I'm not sure how my parents would think about it. I just remembered my father as an ATM, and my mother...

Eve has came across this term 'third hand smoke' and she told me the implications of this for humans, especially for children. This is so shocking. All of us know about second hand smoke, which causes harm to the lungs for those passer-bys, and those who breathe cigarette smoke. However, smoking is more lethal than that. Third hand smoke actually means the tobacco remnants that settle down after floating in the air. This means it can land on anywhere! Possible places Hair Clothes Carpets Shoes Hands Handphone Skin Beds EVERYWHERE! Imagine our couch has those third hand smoke! And our children lie down on it, and the nose sniff into the couch cover. How terrible is that? Moreover, children are even more susceptible to these, because we carry them, and they smell our clothings, we touch them with our hands etc. From this acquired knowledge, I just feel that one should not even think of smoking at all. It's really an irresponsible behaviour. Sorry to the smoke...

Playtime It's real fun when you play with your children outdoors and you will join in too! And now when I take pictures of them, Josh will say, "Daddy, take picture!" How interesting and they will pose too! Playtime with them is very important, and like my past post, I will spend about 30 minutes with them everyday. After a while, they will know the trend. That is: to go home to rest for 10 minutes, head to bathe, and head to school already. And my job is done till 12pm. After that, I can work already. Now, their motor skills with their tricycle is very good! And Josh is able to manoeuvre very well in turns as well as stopping too! So proud of my two children! Picture of them at the playground. Swimming Today, we went to swim in the evening at Castle Green. The weather's very good and thank God for it. And this time, we bought dinner to the place, and luckily we did that! After the swim, all of us were very hungry and we ate all of them. Eve brought the...

Having a family means that you will actually spend more of your time in the kitchen! This is where I read about in 'A love that multiplies' by Michelle Duggar! This is so true! Ever since I have Josh, my participation in the kitchen has escalated compared to those days whereby both Eve and I used to eat out (without any elements of a hassle). And it's been 4 years and I can say that I have trained myself to do the washing of dishes easily and also whip up dishes too! Michelle Duggar has 18 children and she delegates her household chores in the house. And it's really commendable and a good practice to learn because through this, the children learn the cooking and preparation work. What we did Yesterday, we cooked macaroni with prawns, vegetables, mushrooms. And side dishes of petai, tou gan and beet root soup! And I'm really amazed that Josh enjoyed to prepare the ingredients with me. He learnt the cutting of the vegetables too. I used the normal knife while...

On 18th May 2013, we went to Tioman again and this time, it's different. We took the Berjaya Air's propeller plane and it took us only 50 minutes to reach Tioman! How cool is that? We used to take bus from Singapore to Mersing, and then boat. However, that will take us 6-7 hours of travelling. It's not a wise choice and after we experienced the plane ride, we feel that our future trips to Tioman will be via Berjaya Air! We took an airport shuttle bus to the propeller plane. So exciting. A group picture before we board the plane. We reached Tioman at 1pm, and we were actually in Singapore Changi Airport at 12pm! It is really an amazing feeling! All of us are so excited about it. Our children slept on the journey there. This propeller plane is small and the door is used as the stairs! The seats were not fully taken and hence we have the window seats for ourselves. Since it was a short journey, no food was served. The air-con was not really working though....

It's really exciting to see your baby's ultrasound even though this is not the first time I'm looking at it! Every baby's different and so is every pregnancy. I came across some place that some of the characters of your baby can be seen before birth! E.g how active, how your baby loves the music you sing, how strong the kicks are... It's really amazing. Looking at the how Josh and Kate grew from a fetus, to a baby and now toddlers, it's really by God's grace who gave them to us, and entrusted us to take care of them. And certainly the photos taken really bring back great memories. July will be a mark another milestone for our family. And Kate will be 2 years old, Josh will be 4! Wow isn't?

Last Saturday, my Parenting with Confidence group mates organized a Botanic Gardens Picnic and really thankful that the weather was very fine. And we managed to find a great picnic spot, near to the nest of the Swans! And it's a pot luck session and it's really very nice feeling to see them once again! It's the time of nesting season for the swans. Just remember that two years ago, they too had laid eggs, which gave birth to close to 14 new baby swans! I wonder this season, how many did they lay? The food present were fruits, crackers, self-made strawberry yogurt with blueberries, sandwiches and we brought our own popcorns! It's really very happy to enjoy a wide range of food, and both Josh and Kate love the company too. It's actually their first time engaging so many different adults and young friends too! Our friend, Gerry saying 'Hi' to Kate. We are the youngest couple there and it's really very fun to see that these parents really ma...